Search This Blog

Good News from 1,762 Miles Away

It was kind of a blip. Not many Auburn might have noticed, but a move made by Arizona State today could have a good ramifications for the Tigers. Tempe to Auburn is 1,762 miles according to google maps, but after the Sun Devils announcement the two towns are now worlds apart:

Lisa Love, ASU Vice President for Athletics, announced Tuesday night at a team banquet saluting the No. 1 Sun Devils that Esmay no longer is an interim coach. A formal announcement is planned for today.

Last June, Tim Esmay was fired from the ASU Baseball coaching staff. A year later, after leading the Sun Devils to a 46-8 record and the #1 National seed, as well as their 4th straight Pac-10 Championship, Tim Esmay is now officially leading the Sun Devils as the Head Coach. He was named the Interim Head Coach back in December after Pat Murphy was abruptly fired after 15 seasons, and didn’t picked up right where Murph left off. There were many doubters coming into this season, and they were silenced by a 24-0 start. ”I am extremely honored to lead this program and carry on the storied tradition,” Esmay said. “To be able to be the head coach at my alma mater is a dream come true!”

So how does this affect Auburn? Well we can knock off one of the best suitors for John Pawlowski off the list. Paws has ties to ASU and has spoken about how much he loves the program. With this hiring, that’s one less school that can legitimately come courting for Pawlowski.

I’ll go on the record and say there are two schools I could legitimately see Pawlowski leaving Auburn for: Arizona State and Clemson. Arizona State now has their head man and Clemson is in the post season again.

Still, be warned Auburn fans, Pawlowski is going to be a hot commodity in the offseason and will have a meeting with Jay Jacobs coming up this month to discuss a contract extension.

Currently he’s under a 5 Year deal and if Pawlowski does leave he would owe the school his base salary ($180,000) multiplied by the number of years left on his contract (4) for a grand total of $720,000. A pretty big chunk of change.

As for the other Auburn coaches? Link Jarrett’s name is going to start popping up soon as a potential head coach at some schools. However, I’d hope the powers that be know how big a commodity the hitting coach has been to Auburn.